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Federal Europe

This article is about real world federalisation of Europe. For hypothetical proposals, see
United States of Europe. For the political doctrine of European cultural integration, see
Europeanism. For the process of integration in Europe generally, see
European integration.

Since the 1950s,
European integration
has seen the development of a supranational
system of governance, as its institutions
move further from the concept of simple intergovernmentalism
and more towards a federalized system. However, with the Maastricht Treaty
of 1992, new intergovernmental elements have been introduced alongside the more federal systems, making it more difficult to define the European Union (the EU). The European Union, which operates through a hybrid system of intergovernmentalism
and supranationalism, is not officially a federation – though various academic observers regard it as having the characteristics of a federal system.[1]

Contents

In the
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle
of 1818, Tsar Alexander, as the most advanced internationalist of the day, suggested a kind of permanent European union and even proposed the maintenance of international military forces to provide recognized states with support against changes by violence.[2]

A Pan-European movement gained some momentum from the 1920s with the creation of the
Paneuropean Union, based on
Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi's 1923 manifesto
Paneuropa, which presented the idea of a unified European State. The movement, led by Coudenhove-Kalergi and subsequently by
Otto von Habsburg, is the oldest European unification movement.[3][4][5]
His ideas influenced Aristide Briand, who gave a speech in favour of a European Union in the
League of Nations
on 8 September 1929, and in 1930, who wrote his "Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union" for the Government of France.[6]

We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only, will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living.

Debate on European unity is often vague as to the boundaries of 'Europe'. The word 'Europe' is widely used as a
synonym
for the European Union, although most of the European continent's geographical area is not in the EU, and some of the EU is outside of Europe (e.g.
French Guiana). Most of Europe's people do, however, live in the EU.

A thesis, sometimes referred to as a 'Multi-speed Europe', envisions an alternative type of European integration, where the EU countries who want a more integrated EU, can accelerate their own integration, while other countries may go at a slower pace or cease further integration altogether. Specific current examples include the
Eurozone
and the Schengen Area
which not all members have elected to join.

The
European Union
(EU) is not de jure
a federation but various academics have argued that it contains some federal characteristics.

Here is the view of Professor R. Daniel Kelemen (Rutgers University) on how various brands of scholars approach the issue:

Unencumbered by the prejudice that the EU is
sui generis
and incomparable, federalism scholars now regularly treat the EU as a case in their comparative studies (Friedman-Goldstein, 2001; Fillippov, Ordeshook, Shevtsova, 2004; Roden, 2005; Bednar, 2006). For the purposes of the present analysis, the EU has the necessary minimal attributes of a federal system and crucially the EU is riven with many of the same tensions that afflict federal systems.[1]

According to
Joseph H. H. Weiler, "Europe has charted its own brand of constitutional federalism".[10]
Jean-Michel Josselin and Alain Marciano see the European Court of Justice
as being a primary force behind building a federal legal order in the Union[11]
with Josselin stating that "A complete shift from a confederation to a federation would have required to straightforwardly replace the principality of the member states vis-à-vis the Union by that of the European citizens. … As a consequence, both confederate and federate features coexist in the judicial landscape."[12]

According to Thomas Risse and Tanja A. Börzel, "The EU only lacks two significant features of a federation. First, the Member States remain the 'masters' of the treaties, i.e., they have the exclusive power to amend or change the constitutive treaties of the EU. Second, the EU lacks a real 'tax and spend' capacity, in other words, there is no fiscal federalism."[13]

Other academics have argued that the EU is unlikely to evolve into a unified federal state. Kelemen (together with Andy Tarrant) has taken this view himself, arguing that limits placed on the bureaucratic capacity of the European institutions – such as the relatively small size of the
European Commission
– form a barrier to the creation of a federal European state. In their words: "widespread political opposition to the creation of anything approximating a large, unified executive bureaucracy in Brussels has long-since ended hopes, for the few who harbored them, of creating a European superstate."[14]
Some common points in this context are that the European budget is very small and does not finance a lot of the economic activity of the European Union; that each member state of the European Union has its own foreign relations and has its own military if it so desires; that it is often the case that European Union member states decide to opt out of agreements which they oppose; and that member states still retain sovereignty over a large number of areas which might be expected to be transferred to a federal authority under a federal system. One important fact is that treaties must be agreed by all member states even if a particular treaty has support among the vast majority of the population of the European Union. Member states may also want legally binding guarantees that a particular treaty will not affect a nation's position on certain issues.

Leo Klinkers and Herbert Tombeur explain in their European Federalist Papers (2012–2013)
[18]
the elementary standards and principles of federalism. They depict the system errors of the Treaty of Lisbon
which forms the legal basis of the present intergovernmentalist governance of the EU. They argue that this intergovernmental system, driven by state national interests, should be substituted for a European Federation. This involves an institutional shift; an evolution step by step towards a federation is senseless, as the past 70 years demonstrate. In line with Montesquieu,[19]
they advocate that a federal organization has a specific advantage: it combines the strong cohesion of small communities and the force of large ones.

Klinkers and Tombeur emphasize that a European Federation has nothing to do with the so-called European integration – integration means complete mixing. Federalism entails a sharing of guaranteed autonomy, i.e. sovereignty, between each component of the federation and the federal whole. A federal pact and law is the safeguard of the federation. In this case a European federal constitution. Therefore, the European Federalist Papers conclude with a draft federal constitution of only ten articles, drawing on the 1787–89
American Constitution, as well as on the 1848
Swiss Constitution, constitutions creating federations which stand firm until today.

Klinkers and Tombeur set out why a European Federation is feasible. Federations emerge from common values and interests. Europeans share the rule of law, equality under the law, non-violence, a connected heritage and a specific geopolitical position. Moreover, its cultural diversity is not a burden, like the American, Indian and Swiss Federations show. An example of their mind setting, different from many Europeans: for Swiss people the acceptance of diversity is a prerequisite for unity.[20]

Two thirds of respondents think that the EU (instead of a national government alone), should make decisions on foreign policy. More than half of respondents think that the EU should also make decisions on defense.[22]

44% of respondents support the future development of the European Union as a federation of nation states, 35% are opposed. The Nordic Countries were the most negative of a united Europe in this study. 73% of the Nordics opposed the idea.
[23]
A large majority of the people for whom the EU conjures up a positive image support the further development of the EU into a federation of nation states (56% versus 27%).[23]

Jump up
^J.H.H. Weiler
(2003). "Chapter 2, Federalism without Constitutionalism: Europe's Sonderweg".
The federal vision: legitimacy and levels of governance in the United States and the European Union. Oxford University Press.
ISBN0-19-924500-2.
Europe has charted its own brand of constitutional federalism. It works. Why fix it?

Jump up
^Josselin, Jean Michel; Marciano, Alain (2006).
"The political economy of European federalism"(PDF). Series: Public Economics and Social Choice. Centre for Research in Economics and Management, University of Rennes 1, University of Caen: 12. WP 2006–07; UMR CNRS 6211.

Jump up
^V. G. d'Estaing (7 July 2003),
The Wall Street Journal Europe: I knew the word 'federal' was ill-perceived by the British and a few others. I thought that it wasn't worth creating a negative commotion, which could prevent them supporting something that otherwise they would have supported. … So I rewrote my text, replacing intentionally the word 'federal' with the word 'communautaire', which means exactly the same thing.